# 73: Mindful Magic: Finding Meaning in the Middle | Tim Van Ness

Tim Van Ness: 0:00

on some level, let go of all of that and step into the stage. Discover what's there because the magic happens when you kind of let go of all the things that you're thinking about or feeling about, and simply step into the middle and discover what might be there

Jon Astacio: 0:21

All right. Welcome to the new Age Human podcast. I'm your host, Jon Astacio today we're welcoming back to the show, Tim Van Ness, who, if you're not familiar with him, he's a certified Psychosynthesis life coach. Now, if you're looking for something that's going to be more of a personal growth and a bit of mindfulness, you're gonna like this. And I'll give you a hint. We also talk about past lives a little bit, so stay tuned for that. Now, I'm actually looking to grow the show and would like to make sure that I'm producing the right content that you are really interested in. So. What I'm asking you is, can you gimme some feedback? I would love to hear from you. You can tell me what's working for you, what's not working for you. is there anything specifically that you want to hear more of in the podcast on the show? Think of, um. Some ideas spitballing like mindfulness, are you dealing with anxiety? is there any technology you're interested in hearing more about alternative healing modalities that you wanna dive deeper into and anybody specifically that you may follow that you think would be cool for me to chat with? now if you want to contact me, you can go to the website Newagehuman.com, on the top right, hit contact me or on the bottom left or right, there's a microphone that you can click and record, I believe, up to two minutes worth of whatever you wanna give as feedback. Now, with that said, let's get to the show. All righty. Well Tim, thank you for coming on the show. Welcome back to the show, man. How's it going?

Tim Van Ness: 1:51

Thank you. It's glad to be, I'm glad to be back and it's going well. Thanks.

Jon Astacio: 1:56

It is glad to be back. We are speaking in third person. I feel like because you started off like that, your mind is like already out of your body and like ready to jam.

Tim Van Ness: 2:05

Uh, that, uh, I'll take that. I.

Jon Astacio: 2:09

Um, so. Pre-recording. We, we spoke on how we wanted to talk about the theme of creativity and magic and setting the stage for the rest of the episode to dance around that. So I want to ask you, my friend, when you say choose your story, what do you mean by that?

Tim Van Ness: 2:36

Good question. Thank you. There's a way in which exactly the way we started, uh, can be an example of what I'm talking about. So, uh, I had a moment, maybe I wasn't completely in my body. Maybe it wasn't, you know, I was thinking ahead. Um, my mouth was speaking. Without necessarily connection to my consciousness or my brain or what I was thinking about what I wanted to say. So I, I, and I've also, I learned early on, I think I have a little bit of, of dyslexia. Um, so I sometimes switch words around, it happens more in numbers, but every once in a while. So, um, yeah. So

Jon Astacio: 3:24

I

Tim Van Ness: 3:24

how, how I.

Jon Astacio: 3:25

sometimes as well. So you're not alone.

Tim Van Ness: 3:27

Yeah. Yeah. My brother, uh, I have two older brothers. My, the middle brother is very significantly affected by dyslexia. So, um, I, I think I got a little bit of it,

Jon Astacio: 3:39

Hmm.

Tim Van Ness: 3:40

the point of this all is that, you know, you said, well, maybe you weren't completely, you know, in your body when you were saying this, and there's a choice point. I could choose to feel, I could choose to orient to what happened from a place of like, oh my God. Oh, I can't believe I like, I'm here, I am, I'm on a podcast and I'm like, supposed to be like really showing up professionally and I screwed up and I blew it. Oh my God, what the hell? You know? Or I could say, oh yeah, that was an interesting thing. Yeah, you're right. Maybe I wasn't completely in my body. The point is, you know, choose your story is the tagline of my company, van Essen Company, which is oriented around doing organizational work and working on looking at three different things in organizations, living values, developing leaders, and nurturing culture. What I've seen are the, the three key drivers of success in an organization. And so part of it is around this idea of, it's not like we have choice about what happens to us necessarily, and I think it's important to be very clear about that. There are a lot of people in this world that are very affected by all sorts of systemic challenges to to be nice about it. That,

Jon Astacio: 5:06

give an example? I.

Tim Van Ness: 5:09

uh, economic systems, racism, all of the isms,

Jon Astacio: 5:14

Mm. Okay. Yeah.

Tim Van Ness: 5:15

that are intentionally crafted. There's systems and structures that have been intentionally crafted to keep certain people down and not give them opportunity and not give them choice. And so. That's real. And I'm not saying that you get to choose your reality or what's happening to you or that kind of thing. What I'm saying is choose your story is really about, we have a choice about the relationship that we have to what's happening to us. So bringing it full circle back to my, my. But what could be called a slip up of my tongue. I can choose to orient to that from shame and fear and guilt and like, oh my God, I'm stupid. That's a story that I'm telling myself. Or I could orient to it in a and or relate to that moment in a different way, which is like, oh, how fascinating That was. I wonder what that meant or what I, I wonder what that might have as an opportunity for me to learn and grow. Maybe I need to, you, you were actually just saying, you were thinking about creating a, a meditation for each episode to do pre episode, just to bring you and your guests into perhaps a bit more of the present moment.

Jon Astacio: 6:37

Mm-Hmm

Tim Van Ness: 6:39

So that's what I mean by choose your story. Does that make sense?

Jon Astacio: 6:43

Yeah. And actually springs up some thoughts because, um. Let me ask you this, choose your story. I feel like there's two extremes. There's the, the story happens to me and someone else chose it and I didn't choose this, so I'm choosing this hardcore journey to fight or the choose your story, as in I'm responsible for everything and therefore I will. Just take on the burden and just fight without boundaries, so to speak. You see the two extremes

Tim Van Ness: 7:24

do.

Jon Astacio: 7:25

and I want to, could you break down what's going on there?

Tim Van Ness: 7:31

Yeah. Well. What's going on there? It's a, that's a big question. Uh, even the way you phrased the question and the two extremes in the way that you frame them, I hear stories associated with them. So one extreme is, uh, everything is my responsibility and it's my fault, and so therefore I have to fight and kind of push through and just kind of suck it up and know that it's all my fault. There's a story embedded in there. Um, I, I, I am a firm believer in, you were talking about exploring on this podcast, spiritual technologies. You could say that there's a, I don't know if it's a technology necessarily, but there's a, a, a, a mindset of living life that makes a shift from the question, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening for me? Which is to say that one way of orienting, maybe one end of that spectrum you're talking about is recognizing that on some level, yes, everything that happens to us in our lives is an opportunity for us to grow. You can make that a connection to some theories around karma and that on some level. Everything that happens to us is A, is our responsibility on some level or of our own making and our own creation, which comes back to the sort of maybe the center point, the midpoint of that extreme, which is what's the story that I'm choosing? And did I choose this experience in life? So some would say when we come into this life, before we come into this physical life, we are not our bodies. We are not our minds. We talked about this last time in psycho around the psychosynthesis concept. You know, we are who we are in our core. Essential self is not our bodies, not our minds, not our feelings. The idea is that we are something greater than all of that we are soul. Um, and I wrote a song about that. Um, and so if that's the case, part of theories, one of the theories that, uh, is out there in the world to consider and choose as a story is that as soul, before we come into this physical life, we make a choice about which spiritual lessons we feel like we wanna work on. So then we end up actually choosing the context of our life by the family we choose to be born into. So that's perhaps one extreme of what you're talking about. It's like, did I actually choose this? Well, you could say no. You could say yes. Um,

Jon Astacio: 10:27

Right,

Tim Van Ness: 10:29

uh, the other extreme is that. All of this stuff is happening to me in my life. It has nothing to do with my own creation. I'm just simply, uh, um, well, the, the extreme of it is I'm just a victim of it all. And so I have to fight and, and suffer through whatever to kind of make my way in the world and try to seek whatever happiness I might want to seek. Um, and it could be very futile. Like what's even the point? There's a lot of people out there in the world right now that I, I think, feel this way. Um, because there's a lot of crap happening in the world. There's a lot of change happening. There's a lot of struggle. And yes, the, this physical life can really suck for a lot of people and for some people more so than others. You know, I'm a. Yeah, I, I, in my sort of physiological and, and contextual makeup represent someone that has the greatest source of, of, of power and control and access as a white, heterosexual, middle aged male. There's probably other factors that in there that I could do that, that comes from, I'm, I'm also a, a white Anglo-Saxon, Protestant in my background. So all of those factors, there are a lot of people that are very different from me that don't have the kinds of access to opportunity and what we think of as choice, and I think that's real. So. Hopefully that starts to articulate some of my thinking about the two ends of the extremes. Even if you're orienting to the ex extreme end of everything is happening to me and um, I'm a victim of all of this and I'm stuck. There are realities about that, and yet there's also. What we do have choices once again, how we relate to that story, and do we choose that story or do we choose to say, I'm not gonna be a victim of my, of my, uh, circumstance. I'm gonna take action in the ways that I can to live in accordance with my own values and what I believe and what's important to me. I can choose to focus on love, or I can choose to focus on fear.

Jon Astacio: 12:52

mm-Hmm. Yeah, that right. Choose your focus. You know, it's interesting because my background, my life experience has been very mixed. And so I think I would have a unique perspective on the, the culture aspect, the nationality aspect, the, the color of your skin aspect, and, um. What I started to process the world around me as is, um, I like the understanding and the idea of reincarnation and how. You get, let's just say, I don't wanna say injected, but you, you know, you, you get the, you as in the, the soul, you get to inhabit a physical body multiple times, and sometimes that body is a different color. Sometimes it's on a different part of the planet, and you're, it's almost like a game where you're like, you know what? In like those, those video games where you get to choose to be the bad guy or the good guy, or you know, then they have. A slew of, um, of backgrounds. This one's like big, this one's small, but they all have their own, um, positive and negative qualities. And you gotta decide which personality, what body, so to speak, to jump into. And I remember just those games, I, I would just take forever.'cause I'm like, I feel like I'm a little bit of everything. Um, but think of your soul jumping into a body and you're like, okay, cool. So I get to. Rock this one for a couple years and, um, I, I get to be a badass in this aspect. Let's go. And maybe in the past life you were just rocking a different body and, um, decided to switch it up. But again, the veil makes you forget so that you can have a genuine experience of a new experience, even though this could be like your hundredth time. And then you have a couple buddies that follow you around that reincarnate as your old crew. And that's like your family, your close friends, the people that you feel like you meet within five minutes and you felt like you've known them forever. Like those are your people, right? Tim? You could be my, one of my, one of the crew, right? We're part of each other's crew. And so I like that thought because it just blows past all these different concepts and barriers and limitations of. Of our culture in this period of time, place, reality, so forth. And, um, and when someone says, oh, this happened because of that, I'm like, okay, cool. That's an interesting construct based off of what's going on right now. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing type of thing. Um,

Tim Van Ness: 15:32

Yep.

Jon Astacio: 15:33

and, you know, reincarnation, that's a really cool subject, but um, I like how you brought that up and I wanted to share my piece.

Tim Van Ness: 15:40

Yeah, thank you. And we, we, we have taken to calling each other brother at times and who, who knows, maybe we, we were actually family brothers at one point in some other lifetime, you know, and yeah, come into this world at different times in different contexts and circumstances, certainly right. Yet. It's like, oh, you and I do that. I find that is really interesting, right? There are people you, you meet and like, oh, I, I know you. Like, how do I, like, how do I, like, it's good to see you again. I It is. Maybe you've been a couple of lifetimes, I don't know. But,

Jon Astacio: 16:16

Yeah.

Tim Van Ness: 16:16

there is something, right? And yeah, that, it's a fascinating topic and we could go down that road too. And I know there were other things you wanted to explore here.

Jon Astacio: 16:25

yes. Um, we were talking about, um. The phrase, the magic in the middle. I'm not sure if, if what you meant is, I mean, I showed two extremes. Is the magic in the middle the, the middle of that, or are you speaking to something else?'cause you, you definitely wanted to speak on that phrase. I.

Tim Van Ness: 16:45

Yeah, it's a good question. Um. I don't know if I had thought about it in terms of the middle of the spectrum that we were talking about, about Choose Your Story. I, I think it's related, but the phrase comes from my background and experience in a form of improvisational theater called Playback Theater

Jon Astacio: 17:09

Hmm.

Tim Van Ness: 17:09

Playback is a form of improv based on the enactment of personal story. So it's a bit different from traditional comedy improv. In which typically in that context, you ask the audience for to, to just call out a, I don't know, a kitchen utensil and somebody says an egg beater. Okay, so we've got somebody with an eggbeater and what's a location I. Boulangerie in Paris, it's like, okay, so here's a person with a, you know, two, you know, two people in a scene. And, and then you just, you, you just go and you, you improvise on on and you just explore whatever's there. Um, in playback, we invite people to share a real moment from their life, or even to start with just a feeling. And sometimes there's a theme, like, I'm doing a show this Friday. We're doing a, a performance at, at Brandeis University for a class on provocative art. And, uh, my buddy will see is the, is the professor of that class. And he's also a playback professional. And he's put, you know, we, we put together a team of players to go and perform Playback theater as a provocative arts. And the theme is gonna be something like, when, when, have you ever felt different in your life? And so there may be a theme so people share moments of their lives of when they felt different. It might be positive, it might be negative. Um, and so in playback theater, the. There's, uh, we'll see for instance, uh, who's leading this program, um, who's the professor of the class, and also, uh, the director of our company plays the role of what's called the conductor. The conductor is the interlocutor between the audience and the players. So is the one that is sort of the MC, the master of ceremonies that, uh. Invites kind of explains a little bit to the audience about what's gonna happen, and then invites people to share and maybe clarifies to make sure we understand exactly what they're saying. And then there's this magical phrase called Let's watch.

Jon Astacio: 19:23

Hmm.

Tim Van Ness: 19:23

That's the handoff between the teller sharing what they have to share and the conductor passing it off to the players. And I say players'cause there are actors and there's also a musician. And so there's this moment of choice as an actor, I'm standing there and in front of me is the stage. And we imagine a, an imaginary line that's like, that's right in front of me as I'm standing on the back of the stage. Um, when I'm behind the line, I'm simply just me listening. And as actors in playback, we listen with our whole being. We don't just listen with our ears, we listen with our bodies. We listen with our hearts to seek inspiration and connection to what the experience of the teller was.'cause the goal of what we're trying to do is to play back or reenact the essence of the story or the essence of the feeling in a way to really honor the teller and honor their experience and bring it to life. And so here I am, I'm standing behind a line. I've heard someone share. I'm about to be part of an ensemble that's gonna reenact this. And it's very easy to stay connected to our, our mental bodies, right? I'm thinking like, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say? How am I gonna act this out? What am I gonna do, right? Um, our bodies may have feel and impulse to do something. And the magic in the middle speaks to this idea that it's, it's fine to notice the thoughts going through my head about what I might do. I. I have to be a little bit careful of that because I, I have to be careful a little bit about the intention because we filter all this stuff through our own experiences, and so am I, is the the idea that's coming to me, coming to me because I want to, like, look good or make the audience laugh or, but none of that's really the goal. The goal is how can I accurately represent sometimes just through sound and motion. This other person's human experience and I like to teach the idea that like it, okay, so notice the thoughts in my head as I'm standing there. Notice the physical sensations that go through my body. Maybe where in my body I feel the feeling that person just shared. Take all of that into account. But on some level, let go of all of that and step into the stage. Discover what's there because the magic happens when you kind of let go of all the things that you're thinking about or feeling about, and simply step into the middle and discover what might be there. That may be beyond everything that I had thought about. And then oftentimes I find when I do that and I step in and I access that magic in the middle, I come up with something that's even more powerful and effective to help the teller feel like, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. That's exactly it. That's exactly what it's like. And I could not have planned that. I could not have thought about that because that truth. It kind of exists in the magic, in the middle, on the stage, and not in my own brain.

Jon Astacio: 22:55

Hmm. So we're talking about interesting how it's the magic in the middle and not the phrase why, why not use, or is it the subconscious or is this something more deeper? Right? Because you have your subconscious and then you have the connection to the deeper connection to the scenario. And I do have, um. Respect for the understanding and the ability to let go. Because when you let go, for me, that's let go of your mental processes, thoughts that are limited to your understanding, and when you let go of that, you, you bring space. You make space for something bigger than that, that you made you as in the mental you.

Tim Van Ness: 23:50

Yeah.

Jon Astacio: 23:51

May not even know about, and I think that's what you're talking about, right?

Tim Van Ness: 23:56

Yes. I would say that it's not necessarily just the subconscious. Um, I think that's. Partly it, um, but I think almost more,'cause it's really not about me, it's not about what might be in my subconscious, what I'm actually talking about really is connecting to a field that gets created when you bring together a group of people and you create a sacred container, which is part of what playback does. And there's very. Structured rituals involved in the process of starting a whole performance and how we welcome people into the space, acknowledging the physical space that we're in. Is it a theater? Is it a, an old train station with old wood floors that we're using as a theater tonight? Because, you know, it's a, like, what's the context of where we are? Who are the people, what's the process for welcoming people in? Is there music playing when they come in? There's a whole structured ritual process to create a container within which there's a field and, and it's the field of, some might call it the collective consciousness. That's what Carl Jung talked about. Like there's me in

Jon Astacio: 25:21

Like a local one.

Tim Van Ness: 25:23

a local one. Yeah, a local field that's. Where all of our collective thoughts, experiences, emotions, um, past lives, who knows right? Are all present in this field and the goal and playback and the goal of the magic in the middle is speaking to can I tap into that field that's even beyond my own subconscious.

Jon Astacio: 25:47

Mm-Hmm. It's actually pretty cool how that's whole all set up because you said, um, there's rituals and, and whatnot, and there's rules that are designed sound, sound like they're designed for you to be inducted into this. Um, uh. This local collective conscious, like this, this local grid of minds. And, um,

Tim Van Ness: 26:13

to

Jon Astacio: 26:13

agreement is we're in. Yeah, that's actually pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. You're

Tim Van Ness: 26:18

not necessarily, I was gonna say maybe not inducted, but, you know Yeah. Plugged in or tapped in or have access to, and, and that requires exactly what you were describing, John, which is letting go, perhaps of all of my own things that are in my, in my conscious mind and what I can be conscious of, which is perhaps limited.

Jon Astacio: 26:39

Hmm. So a thought popped up. What do you have to say for the person that has a. Challenge with letting go, knows about it maybe is where I was a couple months to a year ago and still working on the letting go process. Especially if you are so good at what you're doing with, with the mind and have like there's people out there that have accomplished so much and then you're telling me to let go so I can have this experience. What are you talking about?

Tim Van Ness: 27:15

Yeah.

Jon Astacio: 27:16

what do you, what do you have to say to that person? You know, if they're listening,'cause I'm pretty sure they're like, hmm, hmm. Interesting stuff here. You know?

Tim Van Ness: 27:24

Yeah. Um, well, there's almost two questions in that question. One is, why, why even let go? Like why, why should I let go of the way that I oriented the world if I, especially from a thinking place? Um, I. Last time in in, we talked about psychosynthesis, we talked about what is defined as six psychological functions, which is sort of the way that we orient to life. And there's our thinking function. I used to think of them as different bodies. We have a mental body, you know, we have a thinking function, we have an emotional body, we have an sort of an emotion, you know, the function of our emotions. Um, physical senses, right? We tend to orient to the world and we, we all have strengths. Well, we all have access to all of them. We all. It's like any personality assessment. We all have sort of all of them as part of who we are at, and yet we tend to orient towards or have strengths in one. So for folks that are really orient to the world from a mental perspective and, and really rely on their thinking function to be successful and get through life, um, yeah, why would I wanna let go of that? I'm not saying you should, and. Part of what we're talking about context is everything in, in, in a lot of the work that I do in the world, uh, whether it's coaching or organizational consulting or um, or theater. Um, so the context might be, well, are, am I, am I trying to move past where I am? Am I trying to, am I wanting to have a different experience of life? Um, and I'm wanting to try to create something and I don't quite know what I, how to create what I want to create. So this topic of the magic in the middle or this idea of letting go of what I think I know and tapping into what else there might be is really valuable in context in which you're wanting to create something new. Um, you might want to try to tap into innovation and how to collaborate with other people. And how to relate with other people that feel so freaking different from me. Like I don't understand'em at all. Um, so what's the tap? How do you do that? Well, um, the, you like many things. You have to start with where you are. You have to start with what you already recognize, what you already notice. And then I'm a big fan of curiosity. So if you start with like, well, where am I? Well, here's what I'm thinking about here. Here's, here's what I think of as the story right now. Hmm. How fascinating. Why is that? Like, you know, what's informing my understanding of that? And then you might be able to speak to specific data points. Well, this person is being like this, or every time I do this, this thing, this other thing seems to happen. Right. And just like whenever I try to like move beyond where I am, something gets in the way or some blockage comes up or whatever it is, right? It's like, oh, okay. Hmm. Interesting. I'm, I'm curious what that's about or why is that happening? Another aspect of curiosity could be, well. Maybe trying to make that shift we were talking about before from, if I could reframe this story from why is this happening to me? To why is this happening for me? Which is to say what opportunity might there be to change it up and if I were to access something more than just what I'm immediately thinking in the short term. What might I be able to create? And the last thing I'll say about this is another way of exploring this or working with this is if you. Become aware of, you tend to orient maybe very emotionally. Like whenever anything happens, I get really emotional and I want to like, I want to shift that or I want to, I want to only it differently. Well, you might shift to one of those other Psychological functions, like you might shift to like, well, what is my body noticing right now? Or what am I thinking about? Or what's coming up into my image? Like if I had an image and of an ideal outcome, what would that look like? Even just kind of asking that question and holding that space, you're creating a little space for which the magic in the middle, that truth that might be there, lying in, wait for you can exist and then there might be greater access to it. Does this make sense?

Jon Astacio: 32:06

Hmm. Yeah. And, and it's interesting how you tied the story back into, um, answering that because they're, they're both tied together and how. First, it's like it's your story, and if you find yourself in a place where you're choosing your story, you've Empowered yourself to change the story. And then at the same time, the magic in the middle. It's like if you're, if you're able to dance with that and start to let go of maybe the story that you created and listen to a story that's playing out in front of you and. Dance with it. Right. Literally like dance with it and my mind when you dance. It's one of those that's magical in itself. When I was learning how to, if I wanted to expand on that feeling when I was, I was learning, um, how I, I was taking salsa lessons. And, uh, I remember my, it's weird, I have, my experience with, with dance is it starts off very rigid. The left brain kicks in and wants to just take control over everything, wants to know what the counts are, um, the steps. And then I watch someone who's been doing it for a while and I'm like, you're breaking all the rules. You're doing most of them, but. You're, you're doing fantastic and, and it's really confusing and upsetting me at the same time.

Tim Van Ness: 33:42

Hmm.

Jon Astacio: 33:42

And it wasn't until I would start staying consistent with it. I would just show up and then be open, show up, and a little bit of that story started to break down of what I thought I should do. And I was more open because I saw people that were just. Uh, just breaking my understanding of what it's supposed to be, and each time I showed up, it just chipped away a little bit, a little bit, a little bit more, um, to the point where, um, I was, you know, the moves are there, you don't have to think of'em as much, and now you're just enjoying the song. I, I was able to actually hear the song for the first time after a couple weeks because. The song was just counts and noises and triggers, and then I, I, the, the, the dance moves kicked in. And then because I wasn't, I didn't have to think about'em that much, I was able to listen to the music and then move with it, with the newfound understanding of how to move within. I'm like, this is very interesting. And then to, to. Tie the, the knot of it all. We did like these practice dance meetups where like, it was kind of like a club, but it was at the same like gym area. So it was just like you and the people that you know, so you can mess up. It doesn't matter. And I, um, just. Try to use it as much as I, the, the moves as best as I can. But then there was this gravity thing where you're pulling and pushing and twisting and turning and like, wow, this is like a next level. This is nuts. And it was that stepping into the magic of the middle, which would be the dance floor and between you and your partner and then other partners and. It, it was just, it, it was a, it was magic. So that's how I associate my understanding of what you were talking about, because I never done theater, but I've, I've gotten on the dance floor and done something that I wasn't really familiar with.

Tim Van Ness: 35:48

Right. Yeah, you're describing that process that a lot of artists go through and the process of, of creativity in a way, which is, um, and in a way it's what I'm was talking about. You start with where you are, you start with what you know, and, and, and, and to begin when you're beginning, you, you, you, you have to learn the steps. You have to like, listen for the beats. You, you have to like, you know, what, what am I supposed to do with my feet? What am I supposed to do with my hands? What am I supposed to do with my hips? What am I doing with my shoulders? Why am I even doing right? Uh, so you have to do that, like, that tactical, like as a musician, you, you have to start, you know, you start out with just doing fingering exercises and, you know, scales or whatever. And, um, and then once you have some of that. And it's even like riding a bicycle. Like it as a kid, we're like really focused with like, okay, keep pedaling you, you gotta keep pedaling. When you stop pedaling, you fall, you stop moving, you fall. Right? Okay. You've gotta like, keep your hands on the handlebar. Try to keep the handlebar straight. Right? Okay. So don't like, turn to the right, you'll fall over. Right. There's all this sort of technical stuff and then there's this moment where things like you've done that repetitively, iteratively enough that you kind of have the, the tactical stuff down and all of a sudden. When you're riding a bike, you realize, oh, dad's not holding the bike behind me. I'm on my own and I'm flying. And then you're in a new relationship with it, um, in music, yeah. You, you, you kind of practice like, you know, the chords and how do I shift from one chord to another chord? How do I get my fingers to do this? How do I position it? Right? All that kind of stuff. And once you get it down, then like you said, you can start to hear the song and then the, the. That broader field of the essence of the music starts to come through, and then you're, and it's kind of like the different stages of, of cognitive development or consciousness or learning, right? We're we have to go through and there's always transitions in those. And so anytime we start something new. And this is perhaps speaking to this question you had about, about your listeners who might be wanting to try something new, or how do I apply this idea of choosing my story or tapping into the magic in the middle? Well, at first it's gonna feel really awkward and it, it, it probably gonna feel like it's not working. Um, because there are, there's, there are steps, there are tactical things that are helpful. That's why. We try to give, I know you do, and I, you, I've listened to your other podcasts and people try to give some specific examples of what to do. Let me, let me share one from my, I know we're getting close to time, but let me share, um, and actually really get real with you from my own

Jon Astacio: 38:32

Let's get real.

Tim Van Ness: 38:34

I find out, I found out, um, about six months ago that I, uh, I have an issue with my heart, my physical heart, um. And the, the idea was that the, the thinking is that I have a congenital heart defect. Well, I got confirmed last Monday. I went to a follow up and a second opinion, um, with, uh, at, at a much bigger, better hospital, uh, in Boston. Um, and I found out that I am indeed going to need open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve.

Jon Astacio: 39:09

Hmm.

Tim Van Ness: 39:10

Big stuff.

Jon Astacio: 39:11

Yes.

Tim Van Ness: 39:14

So choose your story. Um, wow, how am I gonna relate, right? And so there's a part of me, like my scared little boy, uh, who. Grew up in a system in my family where I often thought that there was a lot of conflict and a lot of tension, a lot of drama in my family. And I, I, it, I came up as the youngest, I think I mentioned, I'm the youngest of three boys. My brothers are five and seven years older than I. So the whole family system was very well established by the time I came in and all of that, uh, drama and, and emotion and expressiveness and all that kind of stuff. I started thinking it was all my fault. So

Jon Astacio: 40:01

Hmm.

Tim Van Ness: 40:01

easy for my little boy to think this is my fault and I've done something wrong. Even though the doctors actually even said that you haven't done anything wrong. This is a, Like when you were born, your aortic valve was just, you know, didn't get created correctly. And it's a, a, you have a bicuspid valve versus a tricuspid valve. The aortic valve has like three flaps. Um, and so like, so that's part of what's happening. So. I could orient to this to, and I, and it's very easy to go into fear like, oh my God, I have to go. And because of the kind of condition I have, they actually have, they can't do alternative surgeries. They have to do the open heart thing where they completely put me out, they cut up on my chest, they separate my sternum, they go into my heart, they fix it. like there's a part of me that's absolutely terrified, um, to have to go through this. The good thing is I'm, you know, they, I, I, I'm very, very, I'm a very healthy guy. I, I really take care of myself. I eat really cleanly. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I meditate. You know, I exercise, you know, so everything else about my heart is really good. My pump is really strong. My ventricles are fine. I have no plaque or anything like that in my arteries or veins. It got really clear veins, so. You know, the prognosis is really good. I'm a perfect candidate for this, and I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not young, but I'm not old. So, um, you know, at sixty-one, uh, you know, I'm really, really healthy for sixty-one, so I can, I, I, I get to choose how I'm gonna orient to this and I'm gonna get to choose how. And there is something there, like what is the spiritual lesson here for me? There's a Qigong practitioner I've been working with that, um, teaches both movement and he also does, um, twin na, which is the body work stuff, hands on, body work stuff. Um, and you know, he, he even asked me when I told him about this, where, where have you closed your heart in your life?

Jon Astacio: 42:06

Interesting.

Tim Van Ness: 42:07

Um, I also left a job I had last June, the, the week that I found out about this. Initially, uh, it was the same week that I let go of being a contractor to a company. I had been doing so for 19 years and I left because I, in my experience, they were no longer living their values and treating people well, and I realized I was a narrative integrity with myself. By staying involved and being treated in ways that didn't feel good, that I was not okay with. Um, in a way that process kind of broke my heart because I loved the work and I, I totally signed onto what they were doing. I totally bought into their values and what they were trying to do in the world, and yet things have changed over time. So, in a way, so my heart is broken. So what's the message there?

Jon Astacio: 42:58

Hmm.

Tim Van Ness: 42:58

Now, do I have an opportunity to live somehow more in alignment with what my heart is really asking of me? That's a much different story and bigger story than like, I'm just a victim and I kind of screwed up, and I'm gonna go through this horrible thing and it's gonna really suck. It's like, okay, so some of it's gonna suck. The recovery's gonna suck initially, but I'm probably gonna be fine.

Jon Astacio: 43:23

Yeah. And, and it's a, it's a new chapter, which is very interesting and you know, thank one. Thanks for sharing. Um. And getting real and sharing a personal story of how you are literally choosing your story and, and showing the possibilities of thought process that you could have gone through and what I'm sure many have and are going through. And, and now you're a, an example of a more positive. Storyteller, a more positive outlook and how something that can happen that can happen where you're part of this career journey and you made a choice that. I wanna stick to my morals. They're not sticking to their story. And yes, you have a, a temporary heartbreak because of the attachment, so to speak, right, of ongoing day-to-day attachment to that, that world, that's that routine. And you're, you're stepping onto a different stage, which is interesting. And so. You are definitely feeling the, uh, the listening part, the letting go part as we speak. So that's, uh, it's exciting to see what that stage looks like for you.

Tim Van Ness: 44:45

thank you. And it is a moment to moment thing.'cause you know, the emotion, the waves of emotions still come up. The thoughts still come up. The like, horrible images still come up. They're thinking about like, I'm gonna be lying in a hospital bed for a week. You know, while they, you know, it's like I go from the operating room to the ICU. I'm like, I don't really want be in the ICU.

Jon Astacio: 45:08

Yeah,

Tim Van Ness: 45:09

And that's the thing. It's what we're talking about. Every single moment is an opportunity to choose where, where am I gonna put my focus?

Jon Astacio: 45:20

exactly.

Tim Van Ness: 45:21

I come back and, you know, the, the, the mindfulness practice of can I come back to just simply noticing my breath? Like where's my breath in my body right now? Oh yeah. Right. I, I don't, I don't know that I've been breathing. I think I stopped for a minute. I'm like, ah, you know. Um, so, and that gets into a whole other thing of like managing our own nervous systems and, you know, being in fight or flight and how do you get out of fight or flight and re-engage the parasympathetic nervous system and. back to your center, come back to your core. Remember that I'm not my body, I'm not my mind, I'm not my emotions. I'm so much more.

Jon Astacio: 45:56

Hmm, that's a good way to close out. Remember that, remember that there are different systems in place to help keep your body in survival mode. And remember that you don't have to always be in that mode and there are techniques, um, to get out of that. So Tim, I think as we close out one. Amazing perspectives shared. I know someone's going to take this home and, and apply this, so I appreciate it. I appreciate your time. Um, is there anything while, um, and you know, as we, as we close out the show, is there anything that you want, share that you're working on that people that you might have a plan for that um, you can give people a heads-up on and, um, ev. Outside of that, all the information as far as getting in contact with you. If anybody wants to get in contact with Tim, it's in the show notes. But yeah, let us know. What are you working on, man?

Tim Van Ness: 46:54

Yeah. Thank you. And thank you for having me on again, John, it's been a, a great conversation. I appreciate the opportunity. Uh, I'm. I am a executive and leadership coach. I'm also a Psychosynthesis life coach, and a lot of my focus is on people with, uh, that are in the midst of, uh, significant work or life transition, something that I've been through many of in my lifetime. So, uh, you know, as coaches, we, we say, who's your ideal client? That's basically you. So, um, because that's what you, a lot of what you know about. So I work with people who are in transition. Who have just lost a job or are thinking, they're recognizing they're not in the right place, uh, people who are going through some kind of life transition. Uh, so that's a, that's a big piece of what I do. I also have a variety of workshops that I do around storytelling and teaching stories and storytelling as a leadership tool as well as a teach playback theater. Um, and I also have workshops around. The process of connecting and how do you connect with yourself? How do you connect with what it is that you're doing? How do you connect with your audience in order to be successful? So those are, those are the few of the things that I'm, that I'm working on, a lot of which you can find on my website, which is Van Ness and Co. It's Www.vn-Co.com, V like Victor, N like Nancy-co.com. So then VN like Van Ness, my name. And you can find me there and on LinkedIn,

Jon Astacio: 48:36

deal. Oh yeah, LinkedIn's huge, especially for that. Um. Yeah. Awesome man. Well, thanks for coming on the show and I'm pretty sure you'll be back. We, we have much to talk about just to, we just gotta figure that one out.

Tim Van Ness: 48:52

we always do, and it's always, it's always interesting, fascinating, and fun. So thanks again, Jon